State of Louisiana suing Texas Brine over Bayou Corne sinkhole

Published 4:36 pm Friday, August 2, 2013

By By Melinda Deslatte, The Associated Press

Contractors use a vacuum truck to clean up crude oil that has risen to the surface of an approximate 22-acre sinkhole in Bayou Corne, La. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

  1. State of Louisiana
  2. Texas Brine

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The state is suing Texas Brine for the environmental damage and massive sinkhole that officials say was caused by the collapse of a salt dome cavern operated by the company.

Gov. Bobby Jindal and Attorney General Buddy Caldwell announced the lawsuit was filed Friday in Assumption Parish, the site of the sinkhole. It also names Occidental Chemical, which owns the property.

Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of when the sinkhole was discovered.

An area around Bayou Corne dissolved into liquefied muck, and the sinkhole has since grown to 24 acres. About 350 residents in the tiny community 40 miles from Baton Rouge have no end in sight to their evacuation order because the sinkhole continues to widen.

The state has spent at least $12 million responding to the disaster.



Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.